I can hear it now, “wait just a gosh darned minute Mr. Blogger, there is no mention of movies in the description of this blog” or “gee, yet another boring discourse on Dances with Wolves or A Man Called Horse.”
Let me explain. First of all, both Dances with Wolves and A Man Called Horse were adapted from print so technically they could fall into the scope of this blog. However, that would be too easy. Everyone has already seen or read or heard about these Black Hills classics. No, we will instead take a look at the decidedly non-classic 1948 film Black Hills starring singing cowboy Eddie Dean.
Eddie Dean was a 1930’s era country crooner who tried to make it in Hollywood and emulate the fame of singing cowboy sensations Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. He had roles in several B-grade movies but never approached the fame of his contemporaries.
Black Hills is the tale of a rancher named Hadley who discovers gold in a cave on his ranch. A crooked saloon owner named Kirby learns of the discovery, kills Hadley and seeks to wrest control of the ranch from Hadley’s son and daughter. Enter Eddie Dean (who plays the character “Eddie Dean”) and his sidekick Soapy Jones (played by Roscoe Ates, who played this character in fifteen different movies). Eddie Dean was on his way to the Hadley ranch for a vacation but stayed on as foreman after hearing of the murder of the elder Hadley. The remainder of the movie involves chases on horseback, fist fights, and wild gunplay as Eddie Dean seeks to keep the ranch in the hands of its rightful owners.
Black Hills clocks in at an even 58 minutes. The movie was distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation, the last film ever distributed by that B-movie giant. Black Hills was also the last starring role for Eddie Dean. It was a fitting farewell for both.
As can be expected, the low budget Black Hills has some interesting moments. There is a scene early on where four bad guys are chasing the younger Hadley in an attempt to rob him of his payroll. Eddie Dean shoots one of the crooks dead. A scene later all four of the bad guys are gathered in a saloon plotting their next move. We saw this same phenomenon in the Deadwood Dick saga where fatal gunshot wounds do not necessarily cause death. It’s as if the Black Hills is one giant Pet Sematary.
Other points of interest in Black Hills;
1. Eddie Dean is much smaller than the henchmen in this movie. Often, a casting director will compensate for a leading man’s lack of height by hiring even shorter opposing actors. This was evidently not a concern in this picture.
2. The character of Soapy Jones has no discernible function in this movie. In one scene, Soapy is introduced to the daughter of Rancher Handley who greets him as " Toapy."
3. Even in fake gunfights these guys must be the worst shots in the world. The antagonists fire at each other without effect for much of the movie. In one scene, Soapy Jones hides behind what appears to be no more than a giant tumbleweed and yet no bullets from the bad guys find him.
4. The high point of the movie is the song “Black Hills” written and sung by Eddie Dean. However, in the lyrics Eddie refers to the Black Hills of South Dakota. There was no South Dakota until statehood in 1889. The movie appears to take place much earlier than that but like all low-budget films time is fluid and non-essential.
In conclusion, Black Hills has nothing to do with the Black Hills. Much like the Deadwood Dick novels, the writers consider the Black Hills an imprecise area where cowboy-type stuff must have happened. But we should not simply dismiss this movie as bad cinema. Westerns such as Black Hills were once quite prolific and helped perpetuate the archetype of the lone hero in American mythology. This lone hero still resonates in films such as Dances with Wolves and A Man Called Horse.
Black Hills is available on Netflix as an instant download.
